Joel Spolsky's keynote
Posted by Annalisa Afeltra in
Ruby on Rails -
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Joel Spolsky, Author of the blog JoelOnSoftware, has been given the opportunity to inaugurate the session of the RailsConf2008.
After a discussion starting with Chad Fowler (very much an introduction – where is David Black?) and a few words from DHH, to the stage he presents Joel Spolsky.
The theme of the keynote is UTC-based migrations in Rails 2.1, on the screen appears an image of Angelina Jolie and for contradiction, Brad Pitt.
He asks us why Brad Pitt is so popular, with comparison to the iPod, why is it so popular?
Entering in the software theme, Joel confirms that good software makes people happier, it is obsessive in the terms of esthetics and with respect to the culture code to that which is written.
Now Joel Spolsky is simulating a windows XP session that just has he has access asks to restart the system to complete the updates, clearly a bad example in software.
A similar example when entering a new device windows XP asks for the installation CD that could be lost and difficult to find.
Lets talk about helplessness, meaning the capacity of some depressing software, a depressing situation deriving from perception that no-one helps you.
Joel now presents two websites, one wizard like and one with all the information written on one page; this is the rule of a good design, to do it a way that the user has feedback of all the operations that follows.
Ajax is great to use as it reduces the reaction speed between the click and the feedback, this is the way to make the user happier!
Obsessive over esthetic: on the screen appears the iPhone and the Samsung Blackjack, seems in technical terms the blackjack to perform better and it is cheaper. Why is the iPhone preferred between the two? Because it looks good!
Another example: On the screen appears two beautiful buildings in Paris, but without the emergency exit (like those that you find in NYC). The stairs were not added because they would have ruined the beautiful look of the building.
Clearly Joel shows that the esthetic concept is very subjective, but some values do exist, for example the skins of an application is not a wise choice.
There exists a architectural movement that eliminates the decoration, for Joel it does not seem at all a good idea, an modern operating system that becomes command code without decoration.
Observe culture code: on the screen appears to vehicles, one Jeep and a normal vehicle, the jeep can give you a sense of security, but more people die in Jeeps per year than in other cars. Therefore the perception of security counts more than security itself.
Now he turns to a few words on Web 2.0 also this concept is abstract, but underlined an idea that opposes that with respect to the enterprises.
On the screen appears ‘Ruby’. Joel invites DHH to read a piece of writing on RoR, from the piece of writing he takes a few keywords beauty – happiness – motivation – pride – pleasure – passion, that forms the perception of this language. For other languages the keywords are worse. These words represent the culture code.
Misattribution: a psychologic definition that explains why sometimes our bodies reacts to particular psychological stimulations.
In this case, Joel Spolsky explains that it was put on us when he prepared the keynote, reading the introduction title, that it was false!Annalisa
